I’ve always considered the brown beauty mark prettily placed below the corner of my eye a signature physical feature. Very much the same way Cindy Crawford’s trademark mole is a central element of her look. So I was taken aback when a close friend suggested that I removed it, since a prominent mole in that area apparently symbolised a “tearful” future according to Chinese beliefs. Bothered and bewildered, I spoke to Master Yvonne Teh from 5 Arts Consultancy to demystify the truth behind “good” and “bad” facial moles. Read More: My Skin Renewal Laser Experience LIFE DIVINATION, MARKED The oriental art and metaphysical science of Face Reading has a history as old as Chinese Medicine, and remains as relevant today as it was in the past. In Face Reading (Mian Xiang), moles are like the trees, logs or flower on the garden landscape of your life: Depending on its size, position and colour, a mole may signify a life that’s a bed of roses or hint of a rocky Continue Reading

The Lunar New Year is just around the corner. SKINMAG tells you everything you need to know to set things right face-wise for a prosperous year of the Dog. Prominent and Bright Forehead For A Blessed Life The forehead is considered by the Chinese to be an extremely reliable indicator of wealth, so definitely try and perfect this one as early as you can. Symbolizing luck bestowed by the heavens, it is also considered the prosperity mountain of the face, so it follows that a prosperous forehead should be high, mildly curved and slightly protruding. Tip Keep your forehead clear and glowing with a gentle chemical exfoliant. SW1 Shop’s Sleep Mode contains sustained release glycolic acid in an oil-free aloe vera gel base and gently exfoliates, reducing the appearance of fine lines and oiliness and also clears up blemished skin. If you have a slightly bigger problem than just fine lines, smoothen out these deeper lines with some light Botox. Bony foreheads can also become youthful-looking again with dermal Continue Reading

Dermal fillers may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for some people, fillers do miracles for them. Conventionally, Asian faces crave more projection, so nose, cheek and chin fillers are common. For the others, such as Caucasian patients, cheek, nasolabial and lip fillers are usually the more preferred. But we heard that these are just the tip of the iceberg. With such excellent safety profiles of hyaluronic acid fillers, people are filling places other than the traditional to look better and better. SKINMAG quizzed Dr Michelle Lim from the SW1 Clinic on the unconventional places that people are filling, beyond achieving the cheeky cheeklift, or the sexy lip status. Read More: Looking Too Young For Your Age Is Now IN 1. Temples Who would have thought temple hollowing was a sign of aging? The youthful face is full and convex, and fat is evenly distributed both in deep and subcutaneous layers. Aging results in loss of fullness in various regions, including the temples. “Many patients overlook loss of volume Continue Reading

Acne scars are irksome and troublesome. They can give a person low self-esteem, especially in this day and age where razor sharp features and baby smooth skin actually have a certain influence over matters such as success at job interviews. There is little wonder, photography apps that can perform facial slimming and airbrush dull or blemished skin to that coveted superstar glow is all the rage right now. THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK For those who suffer from acne scars, there is a new acne scars resurfacing treatment (not an app, but in real life!) which SKINMAG has discovered. Picosecond lasers stimulate collagen production, like how other fractional resurfacing lasers also do, such as the CO2 laser, but that’s really where all the similarity ends. CO2 lasers work by heating water in skin cells, and fractionated CO2 lasers basically vaporize tiny columns of skin, leaving skin surrounding each column intact. The heat causes the skin to regenerate and repair by stimulating collagen, and skin resurfacing occurs over the following Continue Reading

Getting cosmetically enhanced is becoming common. Women, and increasingly, men, are getting more accustomed to the idea of various degrees of beauty fixes. Botox used to be done for older folks who wanted to rid their faces of wrinkles, but enter Botox prejuvenation today, where Botox is done in much younger people to delay the formation of wrinkles. For those with flat asian noses, the “lunchtime rhinoplasty” is a fuss-free nose augmentation filler or nose threadlift procedure which can be done at the doctor’s office in under 60 minutes, from prep, numbing and discharge from the clinic. Botox is a powerful neurotoxin that can be used to relax or paralyse muscles. In aesthetic doses, Botox is harmless and can be used effectively to smoothen skin, lift or depress certain muscle activity. Dermal fillers are actually soft, moldable, biocompatible and biodegradable materials that can be safely injected by a qualified and trained medical professional. In the right hands, the results are natural without much downtime. In the wrong hands, a botched Continue Reading